It's no mas for Jaguars against Moss, Brady

Sunday

Dec 27, 2009 at 7:37 PM

Michael C. Wright

FOXBOROUGH, MASS. - Maybe the best places to play quarterback are the teams on Jacksonville's schedule.

New England quarterback Tom Brady certainly tested the theory Sunday by picking apart the Jaguars through the air in his team's 35-7 romp. Brady threw four touchdowns - three to Randy Moss and one to Chris Baker - to become the seventh quarterback this season to connect for two or more TDs against the Jags.

The woeful performance continued the all-too familiar theme of hand-in-hand inadequacy between Jacksonville's rush and pass coverage.

"They made it look pretty easy," Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said.

Especially Brady, who has now thrown more touchdowns (7) than incompletions (5) in his last two games against the Jaguars.

"We weren't around the quarterback enough. We weren't really that close to the receivers," Del Rio said. "Believe me we'd like to do both. We'd like to harass the quarterback. We'd like to have tight coverage. We just weren't good enough to get that done today."

Sporting a relatively clean jersey after the game, Brady was able to stand firm in the pocket to deliver pinpoint passes without much pressure. The Jaguars didn't deliver a single quarterback hit in the game, and in 54 pass attempts over Brady's last two outings against the club, he's been sacked only once.

The extra time allowed Brady to connect with seven different receivers.

"Somebody's gonna take some of the blame," cornerback Rashean Mathis said. "We did blow some coverages out there. With the coverages blown, that allowed a couple of the touchdowns. As professionals, that's something that we can't do."

"It does work hand in hand," said defensive tackle John Henderson, describing the symbiotic relationship between the pass rush and tight coverage. "You've got to have good pass rush to have good coverage. To have good pass rush, you've got to have good coverage. That's how it works."

Coming into the game, Jacksonville's plan was to take away the deep throws to Moss over the top. Del Rio knew the Patriots would try to spread them out, but expected the secondary to hold its own against the deep ball. Some of the matchups - such as Welker in the slot against a nickel - concerned Del Rio.

"Defending Moss deep, that kind of puts stress on the middle where Welker likes to work," Jags safety Gerald Alexander said. "With Randy Moss, they take shots up and down the field. But they can also nitpick you with Wes Welker on the little 5-yard passes, the 6-yard passes that turn into 20-yard gains if you miss him. The plan was to not give them anything deep. But it's just frustrating when you're not succeeding on something you're working at all week."

Moss caught two of his touchdowns in the opening half, but both of them were less than 10 yards. Brady's longest touchdown of the day was a 26 yarder to Chris Baker on a play in which it appeared linebacker Justin Durant was covering the tight end man to man.

A coverage bust in the fourth quarter resulted in Moss' third TD reception, a 17-yard strike that helped the Patriots to a 35-0 lead.

"I think the safety bit down on Wes [Welker's] little short route," Moss said. "I had seen the opening and I wasn't supposed to be there, but I took it anyway. It was just a heads up play."

Anthony Smith was the safety on the play. Smith started opposite Gerald Alexander in the place of Reggie Nelson, who struggled in the Jaguars' loss to the Colts. Although Smith joined the club in November, the staff thrust him into the starting lineup against the Patriots because of Nelson's sub par play against Indianapolis.

Smith displayed a more physical approach than Nelson, but in coverage he wasn't an upgrade. Mathis also contributed to the secondary's problems by sitting out the second half due to his injured groin tightening up on him at halftime.

"Do we have a lot of ground to cover in that area [the rush and pass coverage]? I'd say yes we do. It was our Achilles' heel all year," Del Rio said. "That's clearly got to be something we're targeting as we go forward. But we've got one more game to play. Then we'll start worrying about some of the things we might be able to do to get better [personnel-wise] going forward."

michael.wright@jacksonville.com

(904) 359-4657

Follow him on Twitter @jagsreporter.

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